Digital Rights Management is clearly the 21st century analog of Chastity belts. Among many heroes who currenly are engaged in a battle for user's rights over purchased media, Jon Lech Johansen is most notable. He has been described as Hollywood's nemesis for his contribution to cracking software that help users copy their DVDs.

He posts regularly on his blog, 'So sue me' where he discuss his exploits and opinions. Lately he has posted more musings on 'Apple' category (abut 26) then on any other topic.

Post Gazette recenly ran an article on him.

Jon Lech Johansen dropped out of high school after just one year. He lives alone most of the time, except when he stays with his parents in his native Norway. The 21-year-old doesn't drive, rarely goes to parties and says he has no close friends, except his father. He spends about nine hours a day in front of his computer screen.

Yet this reclusive young Norwegian is the man who may be the entertainment industry's worst nightmare. Mr. Johansen, Hollywood executives claim, has done more than almost anyone in the world to ignite the explosion of movie piracy on the Internet, costing them billions of dollars in lost sales. He scoffs at that.

At the age of 15, Mr. Johansen wrote a computer program that allowed users to copy DVDs. Then he posted it on the Internet. A Norwegian private school awarded him a prize for making an outstanding contribution to society. The Norwegian government indicted him.

Open Source Philosopher and Evangelist, Eric Raymond apparently got an e-mail with a 'job offer' from Microsoft and he posted it on his blog along with a nasty answer of his which did have a few gleanings of egoistic boasting...

What followed was a deluge of comments criticizing Eric of being boisterous, tumultuous and unschooled (although a sizable % did find it humorous)

Eric posted a reply subseqently trying to feebly defend himselves as speaking for the whole hacker community.

I personally think Eric was a bit untimely in trying to provide humour for his fans. And it misfired.